


All In Her Arms

by aionimica



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Dragon AU, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Monsters, Romance, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-16 01:58:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16075955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/pseuds/aionimica
Summary: Three things are to be expected when the dragon came back to the stars. The first was that one didn’t leave their home at night.The second was that one didn’t go check the noise they heard at the edge of the woods, no matter the cause.And last and final and arguably most important was that one most definitely did not get married.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology 2018. My prompt was the “Constellation Draco” and I had a bit of fun using that as my inspiration for a retelling of one of my favorite fairytales (I’ll reveal which one at the end as to not spoil ;) so read forth and discover! 
> 
> Many many thanks to crossingwinter for reading this when this was a terrible rough draft and helping me figure out the direction of this, to valsansretour for reading over the last few chapters and helping me figure out how to work the ending, and to my incredible, incredible editors thewayofthetrashcompactor and mnemehoshiko. This story would never have been finished without your guidance and encouragement and chats, seriously. Thank you so so much.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @aionimica <3 please read and enjoy and comment and share!

* * *

 

 _There once was a boy who was born a monster._  
_At least that’s what the stories say..._

~

Once a year in a land far far away, the stars in the sky aligned and the lines of the dragon could be seen with the naked eye. At one point, it was aligned with the great huntress and the belly of the lion but as the years passed and the stars turned, it stood out on its own until it was the only constellation in the sky.  
  
When Rey notices it one late summer’s eve there, just south of the waning moon, the unease stirs uncomfortably in her belly. But she doesn’t dwell on it. Instead, she goes out to her fields and tends her flock, counting all the lambs, bringing them fresh hay and setting up shelter before turning to her cottage for the night. Inside, she shuts the door and goes to work bolting the nine locks that line her door.  
  
After a meager dinner, just adequate for a shepherdess, Rey trims the wicks on her lanterns and pulls the soft, wool-spun blankets over her as she readies for bed. She pulls her hair out of her three buns and loops the ribbons around her wrist, saying her prayers with every wrap:  
  
_One for Mama, Two for Papa, Three for Siblings she didn’t know, Four for Finn, Five for Rose and the rest for the sheep that slept outside._  
  
Customarily, she was supposed to pray for the Queen and her late King and the health of their long lost son, but Rey always assumed they got enough without hers. They were well loved, the people praised them and mourned the fall of their King. Even Rey had shed tears when the procession came through Niima village. But she never gave them her prayers. She wouldn’t start now.  
  
Then she blows out the candles and closes her eyes and waits.  
  
Three things are to be expected when the dragon came back to the stars. The common folk called it _draco_ \-- the great serpent, though a few forgot and still called it the dragon. And while superstitions ruled the land and they ebbed and flowed with the pull of the stars, there were a few that transcended mere superstition and became almost law.  
  
The first was that one didn’t leave their home at night.  
  
The second was that one didn’t go check the noise they heard at the edge of the woods, no matter the cause.  
  
And last and final and arguably most important was that one most definitely did not get married.

~

Rey woke well before the sun on the morning of her wedding. She lay there for a moment, taking in the silence before it’s broken by a commotion of voices outside her door. She catches pieces of arguments over color and fabric and appropriate bathing procedures, but no one came to her door to ask her and she was left alone.

 _Leave the bride to be_ , she hears them whisper. _Let her remember. Let her mourn._

Tradition stipulated a bride was to spend her last few hours mourning her previous life. The bride and her sisters would gather in her rooms and prepare and reminisce and long for days past as well as praying for blessings on the days to come. There were roles to prepare for and dances to learn, but these last hours before the nighttime ceremony were hers and hers alone. She has no sisters to spend the hours with and so Rey lies in the blankets alone.

What did it matter if she doesn’t get up? She turns over and glances out the window, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, disheveled and yet completely recognizable. It would almost have been easier if she sees a foreign face in the mirror -- at least then she could write this all off as some terrible dream. But no, this is her face with it’s freckles and sun kissed cheeks and scars in the corners of too thin lips.

Distantly, she thinks of her sheep. Of waking in the morning and counting them and the lambs feeding from her hand. Of routines and expected days. It was a simple life -- she fought off wolves and kept her flock alive -- but it was hers and she chose it and with a heavy rock in the pit of her stomach Rey turns over and blinks back tears. In a quiet voice, she admits to herself, _I miss it._

Why couldn’t it be a dream? Just a bad dream that would go away with the morning light. Then she could just wake up in her bed and the smell of wool and feed and that this would just be a cursed dream she could blame on the stars.

~

_Looking back, it would have been easy enough to mistake it for a dream -- dreams are always worse during the draco, more vivid and consuming, even in sleep. But they came to her early in the morning before she even began her chores with a heavy knock on her door._

_Rubbing her eyes, she opened the door and squinted against the brightness. Against the rising sun, she could just make out half a company of men standing at attention around her cottage. Their horses nibbled on grass to the side and a young man walked towards her, helmet in hand. His black hair curled softly against his forehead and he had a smile that nearly hid his weary eyes._  
  
“Can I help you?” she asked, tightening the robe at her waist. “If you want any sheep, the market isn’t until--”

_“Forgive me, miss,” the young man said, taking another step forward, “but that’s not why we’re here.”_

_Rey swallowed. Her hands shook just so as she noted the emblems on their banners and the embroidered signs on their saddlebags. A rising white horse with gilded wings on a crisp blue background: the crest of House Organa._  
  
“Poe Dameron, Captain of the Palace Guard for their majesties, Queen Leia and Prince Han. I am to take you to the palace, lady…”

_“Rey,” she said. “And I’m not going.”_

_Captain Dameron pursed his lips for a moment, before glancing over his shoulder to his men. He took a step forward and Rey stood as straight as she could. She knew why they were there -- why they always came when the draco showed up, why they always scoured the kingdom for a girl with not much to lose._  
  
“Rey...?” he began, searching for a surname.  
  
“Just Rey.”  
  
There was nothing else. Of all the girls in Niima village, she was the one with the least. No family, few friends, only animals who would look just as eagerly to the next person who came by with their feed.

_The sheep had more to lose than she._

_“Forgive me, lady Rey,” Poe said gently as he took her hands and Rey knew her fate was sealed. “But the Queen wishes to speak with you.”_

~

When she wakes, she finds herself still in the palace, still on opulent sheets under a solid roof, her wedding looming over her shoulder, and Rey holds back in a sob. Steeling her mind and clenching her fist, she sits up. She’s not weak. She’s not some fearful girl who has run away from danger.

No. She’s a shepherdess and she’ll do whatever it takes to save her flock. And at this moment, the kingdom is her flock. Even if she didn’t choose them.

With nothing else to do, she finally allows herself to examine the room. She walks around as she takes the ribbons from her wrist and twists her hair up in her buns. It doesn’t matter what the handmaidens might do in a few hours -- she’ll have this last moment as herself on her terms. A window with a balcony opens up to the west. Outside and below is a small courtyard with a fountain and rose bushes. Birds cry as they bathe themselves and dart up to the sky above.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” she tells them, but they don’t stop to listen.

Back inside, she stills when she sees the mannequin in the corner. Laid out upon it is a heavy gown, extensively embroidered, the white of the gown lost in the red and gold and blue threads that cross it in endless designs. Her hands begin to shake. Next to it lay a basket of jewels, golden chains inset with precious stones.

It is more than she could have ever imagine. Not even selling her entire flock would grant her enough gold to afford a single one of these adornments.

 _You’re royalty now,_ a single voice whispers. _You marry a prince. And this is the part you must play._

“But I don’t want this…” she says and for a moment she considers running; opening the door and leaping out into the fields and woods that surround the palace until she finds her way back to her sheep. They’d find her before that surely -- dogs and horses could outrun her but that longing is there, to not give up, to not give in.

She lingers there for a moment, wishing she could stand there for a moment longer, but a knock at the door pulls her away.

There are things to do, things to prepare, including the bride on her wedding day.

A flurry of handmaidens rush in once Rey opens the door. Heavy bolts of silk and chains of jewels flood the room, more handmaidens than Rey can count carrying them in.

Rey simply stands there, resolute as they undress her from her shepherd rags and wrap her in finery more rich than she could ever possibly imagine.

The women around her pull water for a bath and soon the room is lost in mist and gauzy sheets and Rey lets her mind drift back, replaying her naivety like such a small child.

~

_There were only so many reasons the Queen would want to speak to Rey. Or a girl like Rey. She’d lived in Niima her entire life, never stepping foot outside its boundaries. As a child, she’d watched the caravans roll through the town, picking up wool and wood and whatever other oddities someone managed to fashion into valuables._

_When she was younger, she worked under Unkar Plutt in his menagerie, scouring the roads and woods for trinkets and old bowels and knives -- anything worthy of selling. When she was nearly fifteen, she found a ewe who followed her home and Rey never went back to Plutt. Her flock grew slowly -- wolves were to be thanked for that -- but it grew until she had her own pastures and her own sheep she could name on sight. They followed her wherever she went and she made sure they had soft places to rest._

_It wasn’t an easy life, but when had anything ever been given to her with ease? Life stared Rey in the face and handed her hardships. She was almost used to it at this point. So when the Captain of the Queen’s guard took her hand and guided her to the carriage that waited down at the end of the road, Rey was merely surprised._

_It didn’t miss her, though, that there were two fewer sheep in the pastures than when she went to bed the night before. And she didn’t miss the narrowed eyes of the soldiers as they rode past broken fences where wood was smashed to splinters and places where the earth was torn up in long shreds._

_They said nothing as they passed but Rey felt the unease rise in her stomach._

_Poe leaned in as she climbs into the carriage. “Do you always lose sheep like that?” He gestured to the bloody spots on the ground next to the great slashes in the earth._

_Rey pursed her lips and decided the truth was better than nothing. “Only once a year.”_

_Poe nodded once and glanced over to the woods. “Have you seen it?”_

_He didn’t need to clarify what it was._

_“Once.”_

_Once was a poor way of putting it. Even now she felt the raking heat of coals that burned against her face when the dragon paused in front of her and snarled. It was late at night several months prior when a deep roar came one night from the edge of the woods that surrounded her cottage: a roar that shattered her bones and sent her to her knees as she covered her ears with her hands._  
  
When she ran to it, staff in hand, she skidded to a stop. A lamb was in its jaws — only a few days old. Blood dripped down it’s maw, blending into the black outline of scales and skin. Yellow-brown eyes had glimmered in the dark, light with fire and an intelligence that made Rey nearly weak at the knees. This wasn’t some mindless beast. It waited for her and wanted her to see.

_A thing of legends, a beast of fears that ate those that came too close to him, who left them in piles of bones. A girl with her staff versus a dragon, monstrous and with great leather wings that billowed to the sky. Those eyes roamed over her once, as if trying to decide if she was worth a post-lamb snack before looking past her to the rest of her flock that huddled in the corner of the field._

_With a cry, Rey ran forward and struck the creature across the face, somehow managing to split it’s leather hide. It screamed into the sky as blood ran down the cut on its face and mingled with the taste of lamb on its tongue. The dragon looked at her one last time through its bloodied visage, as if swearing to return the favor one day before it took to the sky, spraying her and the dirt and everything around them with blood._

_Then Rey fell to the ground with shaking limbs, and she cried._

_She could cry again. Never in her life would she forget that moment and never again did she want to see that beast. But it didn’t matter now. From the way Captain Dameron looked at her, that decision was out of her hands._

_The look he gave her told her everything Rey needed to know. It was the same look that followed her through the village: abject pity and resolute distrust. She was an odd girl, she knew that. She had no family, lived against the woods with nothing but sheep and her staff to keep her company._  
  
She was always just there. Just a mouth that bought food or sold wool or meat. But there were words that were whispered behind her back that she couldn’t help but overhear. Cursed, touched, watched -- Rey’s sheep were the only ones eaten under the draco, taken by a great thing with claws that slashed wounds in the earth.

_The only ones less fortunate than Rey were the ones selected to come to the palace to be lifted up as princesses._

~

She gasps as one of the girls -- Kaydel, she remembers, with blond hair twisted back into two buns not unlike her own -- tightens the under gown, cinching it against her skin. “Sorry, lady.”

Rey says nothing and just stands there stoic. It’s for the kingdom, she tells herself and if she says it enough maybe it will become true. Or maybe they’ll be lucky and the draco will be out of the sky tonight and none of this will have to happen.

But it’s hard not remember what is more than likely to happen. There was a time when she would walk the streets with her friend Rose on market days. They’d buy sweet pies and sit in Rey’s fields and look at the stars and shake their heads and Rose would say how the brides chosen during the draco were the unluckiest of the unlucky. Rey had agreed with her then.

And here she is, brought to the palace to become one of them.

“Are you excited?” one woman asks. Kaydel elbows her sharply and mutters an oath under her breath.

Rey pretends to not notice but sends Kaydel a small smile. The girl nods and squeezes her hand. If only she had more time, it would have been nice to get to know her, but Rey tries to not think about it. It’s her wedding but she made a deal and she’d see it through.

Because the prince is a monster and this is the day she dies.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

_ His mother was poisoned before his birth, but she still gave birth to a boy.  _

_ And they loved him.  _

_ One day he cried and changed into a something they couldn’t control.  _

_ They loved him still. _

 

~

They bathe her in hot water as Kaydel and the other handmaidens scrub her clean and rub her down with oils.  There’s dirt in her nails that Rey’s certain has been there since she was a child, but it’s gone now. Nails are polished and her hair is brushed, taken down from her three buns that she’s worn for so long. 

They dress her in layers of white simple shifts as they prepare the rest, almost ten in all. Soft, sable leather shoes are placed on her feet and jewels adorn her hair. Rey washes her hands, rinsing away the oil and watches as her silhouette become that of a mockery of a shepherdess. A shepherdess who wears gold and red thread and who walks out of legend itself. 

But that’s why she’s here, isn’t it? She glances around, taking the room in as the rising sun illuminates it along with the lanterns. She notices the floor, a mosaic cut into the tile and it tells the tale of two stories that are told during the time of the dragon in the stars in the sky.

One was about a monster - a great beast who preyed the young and soft hearted; those that looked upon the world with love. It lived in the woods and shadows and dark places in the world that few dared to travel and lay in wait until it's time came and the stars heralded it with a mimicry in the sky. And then it would come and hunt and search for the one to love and then it would take her in fire and flame and leave nothing but bones behind.

The other was about a boy - and the monster that he became.

~

_ Captain Poe Dameron rode ahead. Rey watched the land pass by from inside the carriage; as soon as they were clear of Niima, the knights broke into a canter and filled the road three abreast.  _

_ No time for delay when it came to the Queen.  _

_ An additional column of knights escorted them as they got closer to the palace -- not that it would matter. No one would stop a carriage with the seal of the Organas. But it served to confirm her fears that she was a valuable piece in a puzzle the kingdom tried to solve for years. She was merely the most recent in a string of souls they tried.  _

_ Her fingers twisted against themselves and fiddled with the ratty cotton of her dress as the carriage bumped along the road. Rey leaned her head back against the door, almost frustrated that it was so soft. Lush silks lined the seats and finely carved wooden details charted the history of the royal family -- the great war that the Queen fought in and the moment she found her long lost brother -- one of the greatest sorcerers the kingdom had seen in years. And then twenty years ago it stopped and Rey stared at a blank wall, ready to be carved.  _

_ She swallowed. Maybe that would be her place, if she was lucky, if the stars were in her favor.  _

_ Night fell by the time they made it to the palace and Rey nearly ran from the carriage, eager to stretch her legs. Outside was a small gathering mostly made up by a tall skinny man dressed in a coat heavily embroidered with golden thread. He nodded his head once. Rey skidded to a stop in front of him. Everything about him was clean and neutral with exception of his coat. Every movement he made was deliberate and he held out his arms in a stiff gesture.  _

_ “Come with me,” he said and with no other choice, she followed as he led her inside. “I am the Master of Ceremonies for their majesties and it is my utmost pleasure to welcome you to our capital of Chandrila.” _

_ Rey stumbled behind him, her broken leather shoes far out of place and yet they made not a sound on the polished marble floors. The palace itself was old and Rey found herself staring up at the carefully maintained vaulted ceilings and ornate woodwork and gilded chandeliers more than where her own two feet were taking her. _

_ “Dear miss, you’re going to hurt yourself not looking where you’re going,” the man scolded as she nearly ran into a baluster. _

_ Rey refused to let herself blush, doing what she could do to keep the shameful heat curling in her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sir, I’ve just never seen a place like this befor--”  _

_ “Oh! No one has ever called me sir before.” He sounded almost delighted, though his face hardly moved from that neutral expression. “Sadly, I’m afraid that isn’t proper. You may call me Cee.” _

_ “Cee.” Rey repeated it, lingering on the syllable, as if there were more to the name.  _

_ “Just Cee, thank you. Now.” He turned and for the first time Rey got the feeling she was being judged from the slight purse of his lips. “It's too late to do anything about your dress. Stars knows I’ll make it up to Her Majesty later, but she was quite adamant about bringing you in immediately.” _

_ “I’m sorry?” _

_ Cee was walking down the hall and he turned as if he forgot she were still there. “You’re being obstinate and a tad too slow, my dear. Come, it’s time to meet the Queen.” _

_ It was in that moment that Rey remembered she had never dreamed of meeting kings and queens. Rey never wondered what it must be like.  _

_ Now she wished she had. _

_ Cee left her at the head of a long hall and Rey went on alone. She wished she knew if it was customary to walk down a long and lonely hall lit only by candles to find a woman sitting in a wooden chair in her nightdress. She wished she knew if it was expected for the woman to look up at her through streaks of tears, her long grey-brown hair braided into simple plaits. Rey wondered if it was normal for the Queen to look so sad. _

_ The woman gestured to the seat next to her and said in a single word that gives Rey no doubt that this woman is her queen, “Sit.” _

_ She obeyed.  _

_ “Do you know why you’re here?” _

_ Rey opened her mouth and closeed it and the Queen sighed and a bitter smile came across her lips.  _

_ “It’s alright, dear,” she said. “You’re welcome to curse my name. Heaven knows I deserve it for all that’s come of my family.” _

_ Rey glanced down at her hands, where they lay in her lap. Her dress was smudged and frayed, a far cry from the Queen’s nightgown which was a dyed a dark navy and embroidered with silver thread. _

_ And despite knowing it all, Rey couldn’t help but want to take her hand and tell her it would be alright. Perhaps that’s what it meant to be Queen.  _

_ “So. Rey of Niima.” She glanced back to the Queen who appeared to have steeled herself and who once again looked regal despite it all. “You have come.” _

_ “Coming of my own desire or brought here, Your Majesty?” A hand flew to her mouth as if she could just will her indiscretion back. _

_ For the first time, the Queen smiled and bowed her head slightly. “No one asked for the distinction, I’m afraid. And for that I am sorry. Do you know why you’re here?” _

_ Rey shook her head. “I could guess.” _

_ The Queen closed her eyes mournfully for a moment. “I’m sure you can. Tell me, Rey of Niima. What do you know of the legends they tell this time of year?” Rey stilled. There is only one legend with the dragon in the sky, and some even count it as truth.  _

_ “I’m sure you’ve heard enough of the stories. That I bartered with demons and gave birth to a monster.” Her voice droped and her eyes grew distant. “But he was my  _ son… _ ”  _

_ Rey can’t help it when she reached out a hand to the older woman. There is so much loss there in her eyes, so much pain and Rey saw her reflection in it. “What happened?” _

_ “I don’t know…” The Queen amended, her hand holding onto Rey’s. It was so terribly cold. “Something… happened. One night…. He changed. Became something terrible. I’ve never heard such cries - his father, my husband went out to try and calm him down but.” Her breath caught and her hands dug into the arm of her chair, her knuckles white. “Cursed things and cursed people follow in my family’s footsteps -- I thought I could protect him, put him with people that would keep him safe.” _

_ Rey looked up to her Queen who straightened her shoulders. “He wants my kingdom. He wants my power and then to kill it all, burn it down. To start anew from a world of ash.” _

_ “And you think I can save your son?” _

_ The Queen glanced away. “I have hoped for so many years to find a hope for him. I have searched high and low for someone to save him. But every year he comes back and only spills more blood.” _

_ “Your Majesty,” Rey said, bringing the Queen’s gaze back to her. “Why do you think I can save your son?” _

_ “Because he asked to marry  _ you _.” _

~

Rey had never wandered far outside of Niima. She had never had reason to. Rose was from the Haysian Plains and she wintered in Niima, where the sun never seemed to set. Together they’d walk around the village, arm in arm as Rose blushed as Finn, one of the younger lords, stumbled over his words around the two of them.

Rose traveled. Rey stayed and instead listened to the stories she told her of princes in far off lands and occasional gossip. Of how blights had begun to affect the outer provinces and gotten worse under the  _ draco _ , how thieves attack in the night with the star traced out in their clothes. 

“ _ It’s not just a legend anymore _ ,” Rose whispered as they huddled under blankets next to the lanterns. “ _ There’s something really out there _ .”

And then when the summers came and Rose went back home, Rey was left with dreams and visions and fears of a world wide away. But she had her sheep and they greeted her faithfully each morning. And despite all that longing, Rey couldn’t make herself leave.

“I should have gone with you,” she says to the empty balcony that looks over the courtyard. Rose would be back in a few weeks and find an empty cottage and stolen sheep and Rey would be dead and gone. “I should have left you a note, should have said something to Finn--”

Her hands clench into fists and she holds back tears. But they didn’t even give her enough time to say goodbye. And now she can’t ever go home. 

Her family didn’t want her, leaving her behind after death or numerous other pleasures that a child would just be burdens for, and Rey swore she would never be like them.

She catches sight of herself in the mirror -- dressed in royal finery, taken from her home in the night. She wants nothing more than to vomit -- all she can see is everything she never wanted to become. 

“My lady Rey.”

Rey looks up suddenly. Cee stands in the doorway, his hands wringing together fretfully. 

“I’m afraid it’s time.”

Rey nodded and turned. The handmaids left some time ago, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Her dress moves around her stiffly, the heavy overcoat fastened with ties and red thread. They brushed her hair out and arranged it in an elaborate half-up, half-down arrangement, threaded with golden strands and streaked with red. 

She faces herself in the mirror then. Let her remember herself as this traitor to herself. The ladies had painted her face, highlighting her cheeks and drawing along her jaw. Her eyes were dusted and shrouded in shadow and their lines trailed down to where they painted her lips in a dark shade of blood red. 

Like the beast had already split her lips in two. 

A bride fit for a monster. 

Cee waits for her as she walks and the door closes behind Rey with a dull thud. Her mouth is dry, her limbs moving her down the hall of their own accord. Light dances off the walls and every crack turns into a slithering lizard, the candlelight fire from its breath. Everywhere she looks, she sees the thing, its claws tearing through the alabaster and mortar to reach out and pull her back and drag her down to her death.

Cee hurries ahead, his voice high as he advises servants he passes, though ever stoic faced in his golden coat. She follows him until she’s back at the front of the palace under the cool sun. The sky is a soft blue, with few stars left in the morning sky. In front of her are the handmaidens, Kaydel closest to her and they’re dressed in shades of grey. A mourning color, of course. Rey could laugh. There are no flowers or offerings of bounty. No, just Rey and not even her own friends who lead her back up to the palace gates where Rey walks past the other girls and knocks heavily on the doors. 

The Queen answers in a long flowing blue gown that rests off her shoulders, her long grey hair done in an elegant knot at the base of her neck while braids dance across her crown. Intricate embroidery lines the bodies before trailing into golden motifs along the skirt. But there is black thread along her feet, heavy kohl on her eyes and a black veil trailing down her back. The mother of the bridgegroom, a queen in mourning on a most elated day. “Who knocks?”

“The one who has come to marry,” Rey replies. Typically that was the bridegroom’s response, but he was in absentia. Probably eating one of her sheep again. 

The Queen nods and leads her inside, the handmaidens leading the way. The palace that only a few days before was tall and a mastery now feels small and claustrophobic. 

Rey glances up at the roof, at the painted reliefs as she follows the pitiful procession. Though she can’t see it, she can imagine it: the dance of the stars that makes up the constellation in startling clarity.

_ “Why you _ ?” the Queen had asked when Rey’s silence betrayed her that first night they met in her study. “ _ Why does my son ask to marry you?” _

“ _ I think I met him once.”  _ Rey couldn’t even meet the Queen’s gaze.

The older woman hummed.  _ “You think?” _

Some of the elders in Niima wonder about what the beast must look like. Some describe feathers and claws, with a nasty hooked beak. Others talk of its wings that unfurl and blot out the night sky. They could speculate to the end of their days what the beast -- her husband-to-be -- might look like. 

~

_ She ran away that first night  she was brought before the Queen. She knew after that moment why she was here. She knew who asked for her, and that realization that she had met what the prince became did nothing to calm her fears. Even now she could see those eyes and hear it’s roar. After that night with the dragon and her sheep, her dreams were never quiet. That deep-throated agonizing roar tormented her night after night. He came and she let him and his shadow stayed in the corner of her cottage and the world turned and didn’t leave, no matter how hard she prayed. _

_ And Rey ran because she was chosen and she knew why the prince asked for her -- because it was him that took her sheep, that waited before she struck out before flying off leaving a trail of blood behind.  _

_ She fell asleep with him in the back of her mind and now he came back again -- this time she has to go to him. And so she runs and runs and runs until her feet are battered and bruised on the forest floor and Rey falls to her knees gasping for breath.  _

_ “You of all should know to not run in the forest at night.” _

_ Rey glanced up. A small woman with darkly bronzed skin and short cropped hair and large spectacles stands in the path. Her linen vest and dark blue dress are adorned with various tools and trinkets and she cocked her head as she took Rey in. The woman leaned forward on her cane and fixed Rey with a pointed stare.  _

_ “Why do you run child?” _

~

There is a priestess at the front of the hall, dressed in shades of mauve and with short hair dyed and coiled.  _ Lady Amilyn _ , Rey hears the people whisper.

Not that there are many people here to see. There were the requisite officiants, the handmaidens and the Queen, a few lords and ladies who were nearby on short notice and the smattering of common folk who line the walls in their best to see the girl wed the prince. 

Except he never showed. Rey stands alone in front of the priestess. She looks down on her as she says her vows to no one. There was nothing for her to see, no one to take her hand and stand by her side; not a picture, nor an icon or anything to resemble the one she was promised to. It was as if the prince was wiped from memory -- yet everyone knew who he was. 

There have been weddings here before, all to the prince who swiftly swallowed his bride whole, leaving bones on the ground in her place. At least that’s what they all say in passing when they think Rey can’t hear.

She presses her painted lips together and walks to the altar. A single stringed instrument wails before fading as she stops at it’s foot. Gentle hands lift her veil. 

The last time she saw the Queen before this, their conversation had been short. Her feet were muddy and bare on her fine rugs and Cee had been panicking in the background. But Rey didn’t care. 

Rey came from a village where nothing had a set price and if this was to be her fate, she wasn’t going into it with nothing to gain. Serving her queen demanded her life. Rey would be sure to give nothing more than that.

_ “I’ll marry him on two conditions.” _

_ “Name it,”  _ the Queen said.

Rey fumbled with a piece of paper, written in Maz’s scratchy hand.  _ “Give me these things and promise him pardon.” _

The Queen never broke her gaze, never looked away. If it were to lend any credence to her words, show her power, the strength of woman that raised up cities, it was this.  _ “Clemency, to my fullest extent.” _

Rey nodded and her breath caught in her chest. _ “Deal.” _

Now she stood here in front of a gilded altar with the Queen at her side. 

The king died not long ago, according to the Queen, one of the casualties of the  _ draco _ . But Rey knew what that meant. 

The prince wasn’t sated by the loss of his father and craved more. Rey fought off the unease in her stomach. Would the same claws that slayed his father do the same to her? The Queen had placed a broken piece of lace over Rey’s hands, as if to hide the fact that she held hands alone. It only helped to hide her trembling.

“Do you take the sovereign prince Ben, son of Her Majesty Leia Organa and Prince Han Solo, heir to the House Organa to wed as your husband, in the eyes of this throne, this crown, this land and its laws and powers, until death takes you?”

Rey’s not sure if it’s the steady eyes of Lady Amilyn or the strong hand of the Queen or the promise she made to the witch in the woods. But her voice is steady and sure as she says, “Yes.”

 

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovelies! I have a wedding to go to tomorrow so guess what?? you get this chapter a day early! 
> 
> enjoy! 
> 
> and i've gotten so many good guesses about what fairy tale this might be adapted from, but no one has guessed correctly yet! I love seeing all your guesses -- keep them coming!!

* * *

 

 

_ Mages and wise men came to try and save him, to bind him to human form. But the beast only saw their coming heralded with pain.  _

_ So the young man was cursed to wander the earth, half man, half beast, changing forms without will.  _

_ And coming home, once a year, to demand the payment promised of him.  _

_ ~ _

They place her in a gilded carriage and ride out to the forests once the vows are complete. Rey leans against the glass and passes the time inspecting the intricacies of a build. A carriage fit for the bride of a prince and a gaudy facade to hide the body of a shepherdess. She fidgets, compulsively adjusting her gown, replacing the train gathered at her feet and carefully aligning the jewels that dangle against her cheeks.

_ “It’s tradition,” _ Cee had said, “ _ to send the bride and the bridegroom to a retreat on their wedding night _ .” 

‘Is it tradition to abandon the bride alone in the woods when her bridegroom’s a monster?’ Rey wanted to ask, but Cee had already gone off, gathering the details on the list Rey gave to the Queen and sending out pages with laden arms. 

They were sent out ahead of her procession and Rey has nothing else to do now but sit in her seat and count the hours as they pass as the carriage carries her deeper and deeper into the wood. A small retinue of knights followed them -- protection against attacks because remember, no one goes into the woods under the draco -- but Rey wasn’t deluding herself. They’d fall back and let her die -- that’s all she was coming to do anyway.

Clenching her jaw, she sits up at the thought. No. Not that. She is going to beat that. Beat death and the odds and come out the victor. 

~

_ She followed the small-statured woman through the woods towards a small cottage huddled between two old oak trees. She walked tall despite her height and Rey felt seen and cowed beneath those all-seeing eyes.  _

_ “Hurry up, child.”  _

_ Rey scrambled to obey, willing her legs to follow though she wanted to do nothing but fall down in the dirt and lay there and wait for morning to take her. Instead, she got on her feet and kept on.  _

_ “So what are you? An innkeeper? Horsewoman? You look too thin to be anything more…” _

_ “A shepherd,” Rey answered, bristling at the insinuation. But making a living was harder in Niima -- harder when she was younger and she had to rely on Plutt. Now at least her sheep were consistent. The woman made a ‘mhhhm’ noise before she turned around fixing her with that wide eye-stare. Rey felt bare. _

_ She took Rey in for a moment before resuming her pace. “What’s a shepherd doing out in the woods alone?” _

_ Rey glanced down. “I was called to the palace.” _

_ “Oh, so you’re the lucky one this year!” _

_ “I’d rather not talk about it. _

_ “Of course you would,” the woman said. “And I am just a friendly face, wanting to make sure a girl got home. You have no obligation to tell me anything. But what if I might have a solution?” _

_ Rey stopped at the door of her cottage and looked up, determination in her eyes. _

_ The woman smiled and beckoned her to come in. “We have much to talk about.” _

~

Rey watches as the sun falls beyond the trees and the stars begin to roll out one by one until the carriage jolts to a halt. 

She sits up suddenly as the driver calls down, “My lady. We are here.”

A hand opens her door and helps her to the forest floor. It’s Captain Dameron. He doesn’t meet her gaze. Rey finds that oddly comforting. The knights step back as she walks forward, as if she is no longer something they can touch.  _ Nor protect, _ her mind supplies. 

The stale scent of fallen pine and dirt and dust filled her nose. She could almost smile as her mind nearly sighed.  _ Home _ . Before her there is a path, barely seen through the forest floor. Not too far in She steps outside on a path that diverges in the woods. On one side in the distance, she sees a house. On the other, a clearing. 

Rey looks up and she sees it all as the stars dance and align. 

Towards the east she can imagine its snout, where its teeth are bared and its tongue licks out to swallow the open-ended stars. Its back curves and twists across the sky and its tail flicks towards the west, the spray of stars across its back becoming its spine that reaches to the north. 

And when she closes her eyes, she sees the dragon in its fullness. 

“The servants have gone ahead and the house is prepared, as you asked,” Captain Dameron says, looking from her to his horse. His knights have already clustered back at the head of the road, waiting for him. “May the gods have mercy.”

She watches them as they ride away and holds her breath and then Rey turns around, her fingers tight in her palms. The creaking carriage and pounding of hooves fade into the distance and then, there is nothing. She is alone. Alone in the woods. Married and alone again. The cycle of her life is that she is unwanted yet again. Disposable. Broken. 

Tears fill her eyes and she stares up at the stars, willing herself to stand, despite the loneliness that begs her to fall to her knees. Why should she have expected anything else in her life? Why did she have hope for anything else?

A piece of wood snaps in the distance. Rey spins, the jewels and embroidery on her gown tinkling. There is nothing here but trees. She takes a deep breath and centers herself. A single bird flies overhead, crying out in the dark. This is alright, this is what she knows. A shepherd is no stranger to strange places, nor is she not fond of the trees.

Not all trips to the woods end poorly. Not all end in death. But when the trees shake and the world goes still, Rey stills despite the childish urge to tie ribbons around her wrist and pray. 

~

_ “Now, tell me your tale.” _

_ Rey looked up from the steaming cup in her hand to the woman. Maz, she called herself. “Last names are not important, but Kanata would be close enough,” she had said. She sits across from Rey, her thick spectacles giving off the sensation that she is under very close scrutiny.  _

_ “What do you know of the prince?” _

_ Maz leaned back. “More than I care too. I knew his father well. That boy was trouble as a child, but the good kind. The kind that rolled around in dirt and tracked it inside, that kind of trouble. However… that didn’t last for long.” _

_ “What happened to him?” _

_ “Not my story to tell. I am a collector of stories, of sorts, but I don’t give them out so freely. And you, my dear, look like you have quite a story on you.” She puts another log on the fire. “Now tell me. Why is a girl like you running through the woods at night this time of year? There’s a beast loose.” _

_ “I know.” _

_ “Did you want him to find you?” _

_ Rey doesn’t answer, doesn’t look up, doesn’t give anything away, though her silence is damning.  _

_ “Running to find your chosen husband in the hopes he might do the deed sooner?” _

_ “I have been chosen for no one,” Rey said sharply, her lip curling into a snarl. “I didn’t ask for any of this. All I wanted was to stay in Niima, in my cottage with my sheep and protect them and keep them and wait for whatever eventuality took me away or gave me purpose or at least made all that worthwhile.” _

_ “Never thought I’d meet a blind shepherdess.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “Your future lies in front of you, not behind.”  _

_ Rey set down her cup and stood. “If you’re so eager for the future, then you marry the thing and perish. I like my life and I’m not going to sit on an altar and wait to die.” _

_ “I never said you should,” Maz replied crisply. “I offer you a solution.” The words barely register in Rey’s mind before they are drowned out by the white noise of her sorrows. “There is a way to save the kingdom, save the queen, save yourself and him if he wants it.” _

_ Rey swallowed and clenched her hands into fists. This wasn’t her responsibility. This wasn’t her job. She was lost in the woods for all the kingdom knew, she could run and she could run and take her sheep to a different kingdom and never have to worry about the draco again. But in her heart, she knew that wasn’t true. The stars were seen in every land, in every place and the dragon would find her again -- she knew that for certain.  _

_ Though this wasn’t her cottage and her fields or her village, it was her kingdom, her home and if she left them all to ruin when she could save them all she’d carry that as long as she lived.  _

_ The prince was a monster, she had no doubt, but she’d met it once before and lived. A part of her wanted to do it again.  _

_ Rey looked up, tears giving way to fierce determination. “Tell me.” _

~

Rey walks around to the house as the dusk turned to night. It is in surprisingly good shape considering there is no one here, Rey muses. She pauses on the irony that this far away, there would be no one to hear her scream.  _ A wedding retreat indeed _ .

The birds fall still -- even the insects go silent until the forest is quiet as the grave. It presses in and as soon as she’s seen all she asked for lined up in the halls of the house, she runs back outside, her hand full with the bundle of reeds she asked the Queen to give her. Her head is pounding, all the thoughts and lies and frantic ideas running wild in her mind and it’s all she can do to keep from screaming. 

Screaming would only bring him here faster. But at least by then it would be over and done. And then it’s too quiet and Rey turns back to the clearing.

For a thing so large, it’s the silence that gives him away first. 

_ “And when do I kill him?” _

_ The old woman laughed and her hair tossed lightly in time with her head. Maz leaned forward. “You don’t kill a dragon, my dear. Surely a shepherdess such as yourself knows that.” _

Rey swallows as she walks toward the void. You don’t kill a dragon, no. You give it what it wants and pray that satisfies it. 

And for this dragon, that’s her. She grips the reeds in her hands and turns around as the rustling of leaves come again. 

Above her, there’s nothing between her and the stars but miles of open sky. Taking a deep breath, Rey turns. The rustling stops. Maybe it’ll be a different dragon. A different one than the one she watched run off with her sheep, the slash she gave it bleeding across its face. 

The thing slinks from the shadows. It’s taller than two horses stacked and longer than the whole host used to pull the Queen’s coronation coach. Its skin is leather, hardened to almost appear like scales, darkened by smoke. It’s the color of shadow, lingering on the edge of dark and light, its underbelly threatening to be called cream, while its spine is ridged with black spikes. But it is the face, the eyes, that hold her transfixed. It’s not that Rey is surprised, rather that she’s surprised that nothing has changed since she saw it last. It was two or three seasons and yet, it is the same distinctive, angled head to a tapered snout lined with long white teeth. 

Amber eyes that are too intelligent to be simply bestial track her movements. Steam rolls from its snout. Slowly it pulls itself up, arching its neck, thick and muscled, and takes her in, alone, in a white gown, adorned with jewels and red thread. 

Rey holds her breath as it sits and works its mouth into a semblance of human consonants and vowels and it growls breathlessly in her direction. “It is you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY GETTING TO THE GOOD PARTS. this chapter is a bit on the shorter end, but I promise, it's worth it ;)
> 
> Next update will be next Sunday, and then we get to the really good stuff <3
> 
> as always, you can find me on tumblr @aionimica, but please leave comments and kudos -- i love reading over each and every one <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favorite chapter - I hope you enjoy!
> 
> As always, your comments and kudos give me life and feel free to find me on tumblr @aionimica ❤️

* * *

 

 

_He cast himself from his family, divorced himself from his name and shattered ties to his lineage._

_He was all that was created by his blood and his parents’ hubris. A prince scorned and tossed away._

_And so he destroyed._

~

“Who are you?”

The dragon cocks its head to the side. Pine needles crunch under its claws. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

“That doesn’t mean it has any less weight.” Rey shifts to the side as it snakes around to her right. No matter what Maz said, giving what the dragon wants won’t work here. Rey grew up in Niima too long to forget those lessons; the foremost being that when you look away from the eyes of the draco, is when it takes your sheep. She tries again. “Who are you?”

The dragon leans forward, it’s mouth open and the noise it makes in response is almost a snarl, almost a cry, but its the mourning of a life lost. _Kylo_.

Kylo. The one who asked for her hand. Who breathed out with awe when he saw her in the forest. And it was the same one, she notes, the mark she left on the dragon now a long twisting scar that ropes from above the eye to its chest.

“Kylo,” she repeats and the beast stiffens. Squaring her shoulders she takes a step forward. “Is that what you call yourself?”

Its lips contort again, covering white teeth and it takes a step forward. “And what would you call me?”

“Your wife would call you Ben,” she says, not daring to look away. Its voice is surprisingly human -- soft and rolling and lulling her into a false sense of security. She brushes a wayward jewel from her face, keeping an eye on its teeth. She will not be a sheep, not today. 

If the dragon could scoff, it would. Instead it simply looks at her with fixation. “You are not my wife.” 

“I am,” she says, praying that her voice was still. “You asked for me. Your mother sent for me and we were married in ceremony earlier today at the palace, under the sanction of Lady Amilyn, and we are bound.” Rey pauses, her breath coming fast as her body shakes and she holds herself up, a shepherdess before a lion. “And you will listen to me.”

“As a wife listens to her husband.”

Rey nods and the dragon, Kylo — _Ben_ —glances to the side, as if pondering her request. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears as she takes a deep breath. He snakes forward, his great dragon head turning around her.

Willing her feet to move, she turns from the clearing and starts back on the path to the house. She can’t do what she needs to do out here.

“Come on, Ben,” she says and half expects him to balk and swallow her right there. Instead, he shrugs,  if dragons could shrug or care about where they eat, and he slinks through the forest behind her. She keeps her pace steady, never once forgetting the thing that follows behind, each footfall shaking the earth beneath her.

He fits in the doorway of the house, somehow. She goes around to the side as he struggles and meets him in the foyer, curled among himself like a contented cat, his amber eyes not leaving her. The steam rolls from his mouth, as if a bellows in his chest constantly burns. 

“Take off your shift.” The command rumbles from deep in his chest. Last words, last words. Rey’s mind went blank. What if they were the last words she ever heard?

She looks at him. The dragon doesn’t move. After a moment, she nods in acquiescence. Smoke drips from the dragon’s nose and as he opens his maw, she returns the command. “Only if you take off your skin as well.”

Kylo’s mouth snaps shut and he pulls back, puzzled. Those eyes narrowed as he cocks his head to the side, evaluating her. A girl, who married him in a palace far away, who he was supposed to eat stood with a reed in her hand and told him what to do. Rey almost smiles as she watches as he works through it all. “No one has ever asked that of me.”

“Your wife asks that of you.”

Maz gave her a very specific list to follow to save him. _“A skin for a skin_ ,” the woman had said to her. “ _To cut through the shell of the beast to the heart of the man_.”

“Fine.” The dragon spits out the word in a breath of hot air.

She’s more than aware of how Kylo watches her as she undoes the fastenings on her gown, takes the jewels from her hair. Two of her three buns fall out as the pins tangle in her tresses and soon she’s surrounded by a scattering of riches at her feet. Some dragons would snatch those up and be satiated. But Kylo waited, his eyes never leaving her.

“Your turn,” she says, her hands on the shoulders of her gown, her fingers already working on the ties that hold it up. Before long, its a puddle at her feet and then it’s his turn. 

With a snarl, the dragon pulls himself up, his head crashing against the ceiling, the support beams creaking as he leaves a small dent in the plaster. And so Kylo digs in his claws into himself, into the hard leather of his skin and pulls and Rey’s mind alights. 

~ 

 _There’s a boy._  

_A boy in the courtyard. Rey spins. It’s the courtyard she saw this morning, that she looked down on from her room, but this time she’s looking up and this time she sees the high walls. She sees the claw marks dragged into the stone. And she sees the boy as he plays in the water of the gently trickling fountain._

_“We can’t control him,” a voice said, and the Rey didn’t have to look to know it was Mamma. She looked at the child, the boy with a mop of black hair and dark eyes and circles beneath them. He looked old for one so young, his shoulders already stooping, even though he smiled and splashed and sent a wooden boat in the water._  

 _“He’s going to kill someone if we don’t. It was so close last time… If you hadn’t—” The voice — Papa — cut off as the boy splashed again. Their voices carried and if they cared or knew, Rey wasn’t sure._  

 _“Luke could help.”_  

_The boy watched as the boat floated too close to the fountain and began to take on water, too far out of reach for him to save. So he just stood there and did nothing._

_“Luke doesn’t know what to do with someone like him.”_  

_“But what choice do we have?”_

_“I don’t want his help,” the boy said loudly, not looking up as his boat sank to the bottom, not looking to the voices and the courtyard fell into silence._  

~

Blinding white fades to the flickering light of torches and a panting dragon in the foyer. Rey stumbles back, her feet cracking over the crumbled form of the dragon, a perfect casing.  The dragon stands there, trembling and panting as he keeps his eyes on her. Where his leather skin was hard and blackened to the point of scales, it is now softer, fresher in a lighter shade of grey. His spines tilt just so, as if too soft to stand up on their own. It reminds her of lambskin. A dragon in sheep’s clothing. 

“What’s that?” he growls in her direction as he suddenly sees her. His amber eyes never changed during his shedding, but Rey sees them now with sudden clarity. 

They belonged to the boy in the courtyard. The boy who overheard everything. 

 _What did you do to become this_?

“My shift,” she says with the barest hint of a smile. She wonders briefly if dragons see bared teeth as a challenge. Not that it matters. Kylo snorts and his long body and his shed skin shifts across the stone floor. 

He leans forward, his teeth bared, his forelimbs shaking. “Take it off.”

“Only if you take off your skin as well,” she says and Kylo tosses his head exasperated.

Smoke fills the space between them, swirling around them in a black cloud, as if the maw of hell opened and threatens to swallow them both. Instead the dragon growls. “You’re impossible.”

“You married me.”

He stares at her as she undoes the ties at her neck and pulls the shift down her shoulders and with equal precision and a bared-tooth snarl of his own, Kylo reaches up and digs his claws in and pulls. 

~ 

_The boy was older, almost a man._

_He stood in a hut built from wood and stone. It’s looks old -- older than most of the kingdom, but well kept and lined with scrolls. Sheep mingled in the fields outside._

_A man stood behind a desk. Familiar, but worn, he looks at the boy with dark blue eyes. Luke Skywalker stared at his nephew and sighed._  

_“I’ve been trying Ben, to give you the tools you need to harness this ability and keep it under control, but you keep--”_

_Ben looked away. He knew what his uncle would say. It’s what he said every time._ Control, control. You must learn control. _But control was a thing slipping further and further from his grasp._

 _“There is one other thing we can try,” Luke said, and he looked up and took a step forward. “It’s a long shot, but it could help us.”_  

 _“Nothing has helped,” Ben said weakly. “I’ve tried everything and I still…”_  

_His hands shook and his eyes hardened and Luke took a step back as the boy’s form oscillated, suddenly more dragon than man. A roar poured from his throat, shaking the hut and for the first time, Luke looked afraid._

_The dragon boy shuddered and stood incredibly still, it’s breath coming fast and furious, as if he was holding onto the last ounce of control he had._  

 _Luke walked forward and stared into the dragon’s eyes. “This is our last hope. Do you trust me?”_  

 _The dragon looked at him, with dark eyes and slumped shoulders. What else could he say through a strangled snout but, “yes.”_  

~ 

The dragon heaves as Rey catches herself before falling to the floor.

“Have you seen enough?”

She can’t look away. Everyone knew of Luke Skywalker, the Queen’s brother who disappeared years ago. Everyone thought he was just off on another adventure, but now Rey stares at the dragon in front of her and the pit of dread turns into anger. “What did you do to Luke?” 

The dragon roars and stumbles to its feet, its skin bleeding from the forced shedding. “Don’t you mean what did he do to me? After all his methods failed, he tried to kill me in my sleep -- get rid of the kingdom’s greatest shame and greatest threat in one fell stroke. He failed, like he always did. He was too weak to even admit it to me.” 

She has no reply, nothing to say that can get past the large knot in her throat that is all she can do to keep from crying. Her hands threaten to shake as she stands there, fists full of her next shift, ready to strip it off to make the dragon shed again. But everytime, she sees into his mind -- his memories ripping through her as he pulls off his skin -- and its cutting away at the walls of her heart, forcing his loneliness upon her. She can stand the weight of her own, but coupled with his and they’re bound to crumble together.

Kylo isn’t finished, his mouth brimming with smoke as he takes a step forward. “Did you like what you see? What I am? What I was?” Rey says nothing; she can’t look away. The dragon snakes around on shaking limbs as he encircles her with his length. “Do you like what you married?” 

“You asked for me!” she states and the dragon doesn’t deny it. Drawn to her against his will, she guesses, much like how she agreed to this marriage. Instead, he looks down and growls before baring his teeth.

“Take it off!”

“No,” she shouts, her voice resolute. “You first.”

The dragon roars this time and digs his claws in again. 

~

_“You’re a monster.”_

_“I am not.”_

_The boy is older now, lanky in limb and long in hair with emptiness surrounding those soft amber eyes. Scars dot his limbs and he looks up from his knees to a figure cloaked in a golden robe on a chair before him._

_“You’re a monster,” said the man, who poured himself a cup of tea while the boy oscillated from dragon to man. “Your parents left you, your uncle betrayed you. I’m the only one who knows what you really are. What your purpose is.”_  

_“And what’s that?” He looked up to the man, the wizard who sat with a deformed brow and blinding blue eyes. Crooked hands reached out to him, and he hung on the man’s every word, seeking everything he was denied._

_Promise, passion, future, abandoned for nothing you could control._

_“To destroy, my boy.” The wizard wiped a tear from the boy’s eye and a dragon’s roar is heard in the sky. “Destroy for me.”_

~

Rey blinks back tears as the dragon screams across the hall.

“Stop,” he roars. He looks up and for a moment Rey thinks she sees tears falling from his cheeks. He’s smaller now, not by much, but more than she expected.

But those eyes harden as he takes in the next shift she wears, while the previously discarded shifts pool together on the floor. “How many more do you have?”

“A shift for a skin,” she says between gritted teeth and Kylo roars as his claws dig into himself furiously and Rey tears off her shift to match him.

Magic breaking, magic binding, a shift for a skin and blood for blood. And with each one, Rey’s mind burns with visions of the past as she struggles to undress. She sees the lonely nights cast out from the palace, the grim satisfaction as he flew over pastures and fields and set fire to everything that moved; the bloodlust as he tore into man and livestock alike. 

The soft, tender hand of a man who reached out to him, to pull him back; the hesitant, but determined gaze of a father -- and then his blood on Kylo’s teeth.

It’s not long after that ten shifts line the floor and all around them are the shed skins of the dragon. Each one shrunk in size and the later ones are tinged with blood as the dragon’s claws dug past his skin into himself.

They stare at each other now, panting, heaving and trembling. There is nothing left between them. Shed skins pile around them, each one smaller than the last until it’s just him. Just the softened shape of a dragon, struggling to stand on all fours, like a man who collapsed at Rey’s front door.

She’s got nothing but her last shift and he’s down to his last skin, so soft and thin that Rey can see the shade of muscle beneath it all. The blackened monster is gone, something far from it left in its place.

“Who was he?” Kylo glances up, tears fresh in his eyes. “The sorcerer,” Rey clarifies.

“Dead,” the dragon snaps weakly. A moan rumbles from his throat as the exhaustion of his forced molting bleeds out around them, the house thick with the scent of blood. “I killed him after I killed my father.”

Swallowing down her fear, she steps forward and dares to take to a hand to his snout and leads him away.

“Come with me,” she says.

He doesn’t fight. He follows her up the stairs. They creak and shift under his weight, but don’t give way and Rey takes him all the way to the bedroom. She doesn’t stop, walking past the great bed, wide enough to suit a beast, through to the washroom where all of Rey’s requested items were laid out and where Maz’s plan could be set into action.

_“Shedding skin doesn’t shed the beast. Take him to a bath of ash and--”_

_“What if he doesn’t agree?” Rey asked._

_Maz grinned. “Don’t be afraid to smack that beast upside his head if he gives you any trouble.”_

Kylo stays back in the doorway as Rey walks to the tub. Rey sniffs and swirls the water with one hand, stirring up the ash. Cedar.

Kylo lunges as she turns her back, but Rey spins around, a folded blanket in her hand. He blinks suddenly as she smacks it across his snout.

“I’m not to be eaten.” 

He growls reluctantly. “I’m hungry.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “You’ll have your fill. But not tonight.”

He looks up at her then and Rey swallows. He’s a beast -- a monster. She lived out each of his actions everytime she forced him to shed a skin. She felt his hunger, revelled in his pain, saw herself through his own eyes as he took her sheep and she cut him across the face.

Taking a deep breath she sets the blanket down and pulls him forward. “Come on,” she says and steps into the bath, the last shift soaking through. Reluctantly, he crawls in and he barely fits and then a blood curdling screech reaches her ears as the lye bath touches his skin.

She bathes him, rubs him with oils and soaps and washes him clean, letting his blood wash away. 

~

_“Ben!”_

_The dragon turned slowly as a familiar voice reached him. It was the voice that lingered in his dreams, that called out across years, back to the first word his ears ever heard._

_There was a part of Kylo that still remembered what it was like to be human. It was a seed at the core of the dragon, that remembered the warm touch of a comforting hand, that craved comfort and kind words and the smallest considerate deeds._

_A dragon, however, only does what it’s master commands. A dragon can only destroy. That’s what his master said._  

_But there was something in that word -- in that name that Prince Han Solo called out -- that pulled at that part of him that remembered and Kylo struggled to work his mouth into the shapes he once knew._

_“What do you want?”_

_He saved his first words for Han. He saved this moment for his father who sent him away, who looked away when his son cried and tore at the stone walls at night. Who didn’t know what to do with a monster for a child. And Kylo put in every ounce of venom into each butchered word._

_But he hadn’t seen his father in years and he saw tears in his father’s eyes._

_“My son,” he answered._  

_Kylo snarled. “Do you not recognize him?”_

_Why would Han recognize him? The last time he saw his son, he was a boy on the cusp of manhood sent away to work out the demon that lived in his skin. Why would he expect to see his son in a dragon? In a beast that runs in the woods at night and kills during the day and sets legends into motion at the mere sound of his roar?_

_Han didn’t back away. He didn’t run. He didn’t look afraid. He looked sad and that stoked the fires in Kylo’s chest. The part that answered to Ben wanted to cry._

_He should have expected this. He should have expected to have his father come see him. The sorcerer Snoke predicted as much, whispering the soothing prophecy into his ear many years ago._

‘Your father is going to find you,’ _the sorcerer said when Kylo came back after his first draco. ‘_ He will try to take you away from your purpose.’ 

_He looked at his father now, who stood before him in soot covered clothes and sweat and dirt staining his face and who had the audacity to say, “That wizard is using you.”_

_Kylo bared his teeth and growled. But he didn’t deny it. How could he? How could he when he knew as well what Snoke asked of him, the words he used to ease the transitions and make his actions easier to swallow._

‘Remember what I’ve taught you. You are a dragon, a thing that brings cleansing fire and ruin so that new growth can appear.’

 _“We only wanted to help you. We still do.” Han took another step forward. Kylo bristled, straightening his spine and stretching his wings despite the urge to shrink in upon himself._  

‘You are the bringer of destruction, a grace and gift that cannot be taken away.’

 _“I don’t know how or what it would look like, but it’s not too late,” Han said entreatingly and Kylo didn’t retreat when he took a step forward._  

‘Remember your purpose.’

_“Come home,” he said and took another step. “Your mother misses you. I miss you, I love you and I-- I can help you.”_

_The dragon dipped his head. “I don’t know if anyone can help me,” he said softly, so softly that it was nearly lost in the smoke that came from his mouth._

_Han was nearly at his head now. Kylo glanced at him with one eye. His father was so small now, so small and old, his white hair curling softly against his temple. Lines creased across his face, but on his lips was the smile that wooed princesses and beloved him to a kingdom. The part of him that was still human wanted to cry and run into his arms and hide and listen to his papa tell him that it was just a nightmare, just the draco, that it would all go away in the morning._

_But the draco was real and Kylo would never be free of it’s pain._  

‘Destroy, my boy.’

_He reached out his hand. Kylo took a step forward, his bulk blocking out anything else beyond them them. His father reached out and landed out his snout, gentle and soothing and all that he remembered. But he was a dragon, peace wasn’t for things like him. There was no such word for beasts that lived in the woods. He could only do one thing. Kylo’s strike landed true._

_‘_ Destroy for me.’

_He lunged, maw gaping wide and his claws extended. Kylo’s strike landed true and the last thing he saw of his father were his father’s eyes as he saw him make the killing blow. Soft and in love. There was no fear. No hate. Han’s hand never left his face, caressing what could pass for a dragon’s cheek, as if it were still the skin of his son._

_With a roar, he set the woods on fire and then ran, leaving the corpse to burn in the forest. Not that it mattered. Kylo never forgot the taste of his father’s blood on his tongue._

_The kingdom mourned the prince evermore._

~ 

The water is red by the time Rey finishes rinsing him. What remains of the dragon’s skin is pink and raw, oozing in various places. She touches him gently, pouring the lye over him. He inhales sharply, but it's almost more from relief, of release and he slides out of the tub with a gasp.

 _“And then what?” Rey looked up to Maz as the woman stood suddenly and wiped her hands, her instruction time clearly over._  

_Maz grinned. “You’re gonna marry the man. Hold him.”_

When Rey pulls the dragon to the bed, he’s smaller, lighter, softer and she wraps him in her arms beneath the sheets and holds him close.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end. Thank you so much for reading -- seriously, all of you who've read and followed with this story this month are just incredible supporters. Your comments have made many bad days good and I will always go back and reread them with joy and delight. Thank you so so so very much.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this final chapter. This is where the M rating comes into play -- there is some smut in here, so please scroll past if it's not your thing. It's all consensual and vanilla, but just in case. 
> 
> One person did actually guess the correct fairytale! I'll post it in the after comments along with the link to the original.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! You can find me on tumblr @aionimica. And please leave comments with your thoughts here at the end! Don't forget to leave kudos and share with your friends if you enjoyed it :) <3

A hand brushes against her cheek, the touch gentle and warm. Rey stiffens and slowly turns around. 

Warmth floods her limbs as she wills herself to move, slowly turning in the sheets to see what warm body is next to her. It didn’t… feel like a dragon. It was too cool, too soft, too full of angles and bones. Taking a deep breath, Rey stares up at the ceiling, the revelations coming fast. She married the prince — a dragon — and took him to bed.

And he is still there. 

“Ben?” she asked softly, not daring to look.

“Hmmm.”

Her hands reach first. Soft hair trails between her fingers, long and dark with weight behind it and a soft curl. Rey rubs it between her fingers soothingly. Hands tighten around her waist and she stills. 

_ Hands _ . 

Hands, human hands with long fingers and strong palms that met braced forearms. And those bright amber eyes meet hers as she pulls herself up to find him. “Ben?”

He’s wearing nothing but the blanket strewn across his chest and her shifts that were tossed on the washroom floor. He folds in on himself as if it were possible to make a man of his size smaller. Moles pepper his skin, standing out against his pale nature like flecks of ash against a white-washed sky. But it’s his face that captures her, that holds her close, that she can’t look away from.

A dignified chin and a long nose come together, meeting in full lips that part at her touch. He lifts his chin to meet her as she tucks her fingers along his jaw. “Ben?” she tries again, and he looks to her at that. 

“Yes…”

His voice is soft and gravelly as if hoarsened by smoke or a lifetime of speaking with a snout for a mouth, but he looks up to her with uncertainty. His proportions are not handsome, but not unhandsome -- rather they’re striking like they were pulled from one of the palace artist’s minds of what an angel might appear to be. Dark brown hair bordering on black frames his face, falling in his eyes and he looks at his hands with almost wonder. “Yes,” he says again as if claiming it for him once more.

Rey laughs, or maybe she cries, she can’t tell as the tears fill her eyes. He stills as she flings her arms around him and laughs again. “Oh gods, it worked.”

He stiffens the blanket pooling on his lap. He looks down suddenly, raising his hands to his eyes and turning them around in the light. “I don’t believe it.”

“You should,” she says, wiping her nose. “Do you know how much trouble I went through for that? For you?”

Ben glances away, shame taking over the shape of his lips. Those soft, full lips that Rey can’t pull her eyes away from. “I never thought… I never… I didn’t deserve this.”

“No,” she says and he looks at her sharply, surprised. She can see the dragon still in him, the mannerisms that take over his shoulders and the way he holds his head as if he has a long neck that he can carry around her. “But here you are.”

He nods at that, his eyes turning to her, his hand still lingering across her waist. Rey takes it in her own, holding it up. Long fingers extend and reach to her, short nails in contrast to what were once devilish claws. But the skin is soft and smooth -- any calluses removed by the shedding, leaving his skin soft smooth as a babe.

“I’m Rey,” she says as she leans back and takes him in again. 

“Rey,” he says and she resists a shudder as he works her name over his tongue. It comes out as a purr, a caress as he wipes a stray hair from her cheek.

“You married me,” he says, almost as if trying to remember a dream long since passed. “I am,” he says into the soft skin of her shoulder, “sorry.”

She feels him shake, the heavy weight of his life falling through his limbs as he cradles himself in her. 

“I know,” she says and holds him again, his hands tight around her waist. She leans down, her fingertips rising to touch the line of his jaw. It’s strong, but soft, lost in the waves of hair that tumble just to his shoulders. 

She kisses him there. Him, Ben, Kylo, her husband, her dragon. 

And it's like kissing a beast so used to hunting, so unsure of suddenly feeling like prey. He stills beneath her, waiting and watching before melting into her touch.

“Thank you,” he says breathless, his eyes glass over before focusing with startling clarity. “You’ve given me… more than I should have been allowed.”

“I took it.” He nods and leans a little more into her lap, his shoulder grazing against hers, setting her skin on fire. 

“I was wondering if it was you,” he says at last when her hands drift across the scar on his eye. She hums under her breath — not all the marks of the dragon vanished.

“You took my sheep,” she says gently. “I’m not sorry.”

His position shifts and he’s on his knees before her, leaning forward as if to glean any insight to his wife, the girl who came to him in the woods and pulled him from the grips of the beast. “I was hungry,” he says, and his gaze becomes hungry, mirroring the want in her eyes. “I am a dragon. I don’t expect you to be sorry.”

And he kisses her again, taking her lips and any words she had left. He’s warm -- warmer than warm, his skin almost hot against hers as if the fire of the beast still stoked in his veins, but there is an eagerness in their actions, a tentative touch that manifests in every gesture.

His hands trail along her arm, unsure and uncertain as if trying to remember if fingernails tear skin as easily as claws. His teeth trail along her lower lip before he pulls her closely and immediately soothes it with his tongue as if he expected to slice it open with sharp canines. A dragon in a man’s body. A man remembering who he was.

“Do you want…” He looks at her, caught between the wanting and the waiting. Dreaming lingers there between his eyes as if he can’t remember if he’s awake or still caught in a nightmare.

“I want you,” Rey claims quietly, her hand pressing against his bare chest. She holds him there, locked by the touch of her hand. “I want you now and forevermore. I brought you back -- you’re mine.”

“Can I pay you back?” His eyes roam over her, settling on the outline of her breasts that lay shrouded behind thin, sheer cotton. 

Rey leans forward and kisses him, a grin taking over her lips. “If you’re hungry, you can eat.”

What’s left of her last shift is gone as she pulls it from her shoulders. Her skin prickles from the sudden air, her nipples hard and suddenly aching and she moans into his touch as his fingers find them and hold them and take them and rub them. A growl coils from the back of his throat as she leans back and stretches her arms out on the bed. 

“Thank you,” he says as his lips press on hers once again. And then he says it again, and again and again, a benediction and a blessing as he trails from the small curve of her neck to her collarbone and then the swell of her breast. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into her skin as he suckles on her softly, lavishing attention to each of her breasts while he fondles the other.  “You’re more than I deserve, better than I deserve, so good and better and just…”

His words carry her higher, stoking the heat that simmers in her skin. Good and wanted and praised, lifted up beyond a sacrifice or nothing or no one, Rey’s breath catches in her throat. His hands pull her hips to him, sprawling her out on the bed, her hair messed behind her. 

His fingers dig into the flesh at her hips, his mouth opening her lips beneath her tuft of hair. His touch is gentle and seeking and then it’s soft and wet wildfire streaking up her spine as she gasps and he holds her close and focuses in. Her hands grip and twist in his hair, holding him close as his tongue works between her legs and slick runs down her thighs. 

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t eat me last night?”

He sputters and chokes and pulls away. Rey moans and bucks against the bed at the sudden loss of sensation. 

“I doubt you would have found it as pleasurable then,” he says, a smirk on his slick lips.

“Is that a dare, dragon?”

He growls and stirs at her voice, carried on by a moan, her gasps coming at a staccato as he adds his fingers, his long thick fingers reaching inside her to stretch and hold and stroke as he laps at her core. “Ben…” 

Eating her, sucking her, licking her dry as he tastes her again and again. When she comes, it's in a blinding white light as a star goes nova, blinding out all that she can see and feel except for him, held tight between her legs as her cry reaches up to the heavens.

When she comes down, she finds him there, next to her, watching her as if she would fly away at any moment. “You deserve the world if I can give it to you,” he murmurs as he nuzzles against her skin. “For what you did… I can’t… There is no payment I can afford.”

“Shhh, I married you,” she says quietly, reaching up to cup his jaw and kiss his swollen, slick lips. “You owe me nothing.”

Her hands find him hard against her and she takes him, watching as his eyes roll back and his breath escapes him, his lower lip trembling as he gasps, “Yes.”

Because he’s her husband and she’s his wife and despite eating her lambs and threatening to eat her and marrying her to fall on death’s door, she finds herself found. Found by a purpose beyond that of a shepherdess.  _ I belong _ , she can’t help but think as she straddles his hips and slides onto his length, the two of them gasping in time as she takes him in, rising and falling, his hands guiding her as she rides him, her dragon, her husband.  _ And he belongs to me _ .

Two halves find each other and come together as the stars in the early morning light fade and roll back to their positions, the draco vanishing from the sky as she holds him and he holds her and they let their tears fall freely. 

~

“Do you miss it?” she asks him later as they walk down the path from the house to the kingdom. 

Ben looks up to the sky and for a moment she sees the arch of a neck too small and the claws of a beast used to a forest left to his own. But then he glances back down to her and picks her hand up to his lips. “I miss the certainty. I miss knowing it all. I was alone, but I knew who I was and now I’m… afraid.”

“Being afraid is being human,” she says after a moment. “But you don’t need to be afraid with me. You’re not alone. Not anymore”

He smiles at that, soft and unsure that pulls at his scar just so. 

“I know. Neither are you.”

~

_ He pulled his humanity through his own skin, spurned by the daring of a girl brought to be his wife. A skin for a skin, my blood for yours, she said.  _

_ He gave.  _

_ She took.  _

_ And there was happiness forevermore. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnnn --- finally, you can know!  
> This is based on the Prince Lindworm fairytale. I took some liberties and changed a few things to make it fit for these two, but I had an absolute blast wrangling this story to work. 
> 
> If you would like to read the original story, [check out this link here.](https://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Norwegian_folktale_3.html)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this ride! Thank you for coming along with me!


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